In what is likely the bluntest of his remarks to date, Burke explains the importance of building a new arena for the Flames to a business luncheon at the Canadian Club of Calgary. “We’re not going to make the threat to leave. We’ll just leave. We still have a building that was built in 1983, the oldest in the league by more than 10 years."

Of all the stupid things Calgary Flames president Brian Burke said this week — and it is a long, long list — perhaps the stupidest of all was Burke’s decision to include Manitoba’s experience as evidence of the wisdom of investing huge sums of public money in private stadiums and arenas.

“It’s discouraging when other (cities) cheerfully, willingly construct venues: hockey rinks in Manitoba, football stadiums in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, hockey arenas in Alberta, but our little city is a little smarter than all those people and we’re not going to do it,” Burke said Wednesday during a talk with local business leaders at the Canadian Club of Calgary.

"We're not going to make the threat to leave. We'll just leave," Burke said at the Canadian Club of Calgary Wednesday, according to a report in the Calgary Sun. "We still have a building that was built in 1983, the oldest in the league by more than 10 years."

Burke, president of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames, launched a media storm Wednesday after speaking at a business luncheon at the Canadian Club of Calgary, saying the hockey team will leave Calgary if they don’t get the new arena they’ve been seeking.

In response to tough questions from one attendee, Burke fired back, saying Quebec may, in fact, be a viable option, since they just built a new arena with the public’s help, adding that “people who are intelligent get this.

In what has been the bluntest talk yet about the future of the Calgary Flames, president of hockey operations Brian Burke said the NHL team will move if a new arena is not built.
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“We’re not going to make the threat to leave. We’ll just leave,” Burke told a business luncheon at the Canadian Club of Calgary on Wednesday.

The Calgary Flames have egg on their face, a day after president of hockey operations Brian Burke put his foot in his mouth.

Speaking to the public at the Canadian Club of Calgary on Wednesday, Burke essentially threatened that if a new arena isn’t built, the team would leave town. True or not, it was an unnecessary scare tactic that backfired.